bill gates

Recently the Sydney Morning Herald published an article on the 15 predictions Microsoft’s Bill Gates made in 1999, a list that predates the internet, the smart phone and even the mass adoption of the PC and this prompted this weeks on-air chats around Australia and Asia, looking at what’s come true and what hasn’t.

I couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of my own predictions, the earliest of which dates back to 1981 and the catalyst for my life long obsession with the Future, and that was my absolute belief that there would come a day when every person on the planet would have their own unique phone number, from birth to death, that would reach them anywhere on the planet and a phone that they would carry around with them everywhere to take the call on – I know it’s ridiculous, it’ll never happen!

Anyway back to Bill, he had a pretty good track record with his predictions, which included:

No. 1: Price-comparison sites

No. 2: Mobile devices

No. 3: Instant payments and financing online, and better healthcare through the web.

No. 4: Personal assistants and the internet of things

No. 5: Online home-monitoring

No. 6: Social media

No. 7: Automated promotional offers

No. 8: Live sports discussion sites

No. 9: Smart advertising

No. 10: Links to sites during live TV

No. 11: Online discussion boards

No. 12: Interest-based online sites

No. 13: Project-management software

No. 14: Online recruiting

No. 15: Business community software

Mine aren’t always as sexy (and often specific to a clients industry) and this blog has my foresight’s, writings and media interviews going back to February 2005, so pick a date and story at random and see how I’ve done, but some of the highlights include:

80’s – rise of the mobile, PC and the internet

90’s – rise of online shopping, the demise of travel agents and the rise of online travel bookings, the rise of a digital world to rival the physical

00’s – rise of online community hubs, the move from bricks and mortar to omni-channel retail